It raises the question as to whether a team must make money for the owner to get a return on investment.

$40M? As it turns out, at least one group (Montreal) that was a slam dunk for MLS has reconsidered, thinking the fee a money grab.

MLS needs to wake up and realise that the quality of a league is measured by the quality of the clubs involved, not the cost of a new franchise. Deepest pockets are not necessarily the people who are the best owners; in fact the more you pay for a franchise, the more they're going to want to look out for themselves instead of looking at the health of the collective.

SB

One point that's been forgotten here: look at the NHL. They've been trying to become “major league” (as meant by Kartik) for longer than MLS (much longer if you consider the predecessor leagues of both; I grew up in Cleveland which had the Barons and the Crusaders in various prior leagues) and is still not doing a whole lot better than MLS is: some markets, sure, but (for an example) this year my understanding is that the Crew have been at least par with the Blue Jackets as to coverage in Columbus.

(As for the pro/rel comment: go look at England. The Premiership and Championship look to me like the first moves in the direction of killing pro/rel; I imagine it will start with the Championship closing the door on pro/rel with the First Division. I can also imagine an argument being made involving the UEFA Champions' League at some point.)

That said, whether “major league” or not, if MLS teams are at minimum breaking even then investment in the league is somewhat independent of the league's quality.

One more point: MLS needs to look at and learn from the USL. If the league can't afford to compete for players with the Premiership, Serie A, La Liga (either one), etc. then it should set its sights lower instead of trying to compete for viewership with those same leagues. This is not a cutdown, it's acknowledging that MLS is a young league and it takes time to become established in the US. Oh, and nuke some of those extracurricular activities — if the failure of the teams that got pulled into the CONCACAF Champions' League etc. proved anything, it's that MLS can't afford the bench depth needed to survive those and the regular season. I predict with some confidence that the Crew and the Red Bulls will crash next season just because they're stretched too thin.

And it will be interesting to see which expansion bid that doesn't have a stadium plan in place will actually go forth to buy one. Its not like all the cities have put up $40M. I believe it was a $100K fee only to bid.

If a city or state is going to pay for one, then I could justify drawing 15K a game for 16 home dates where I get control of all revenues in the stadium. But minus that enticement, I woudln't do it.

At the end of the day, as attendance for a conference playoff final last week showed, just because you call yourself “Major League” doesn't mean you are Major League. You think the Columbus Blue Jackets would have played to 7,000 empty seats in a one off game to go to the Stanley Cup, like the Crew did in their 21K stadium for a trip to LA and MLS Cup?

MLS is a nice little domestic soccer league but there is very little they do in terms of operation that screams Major League. In the general American sporting public, minor league baseball at the AAA level, AHL hockey, and the NBADL have as much, if not more revalence in parts of the US.

MLS is a minor league in terms of the US and World soccer.

It depends on the market and the bias of the local media for or against soccer.

This piece may have worked me up the way it did some of you guys had I not seen that Eddie Gaven piece. So am I to simply assume this website is advocating a Columbus victory on Sunday and Red Bull fans need not visit? Surely turning away the largest metro areas fans cannot be good for business, can it?

The NFL was founded in 1920, but it really wasn't until the mid-50s that it passed college football as the face of the sport. The NBA was founded in the late '40s, but I'm old enough to recall when the NBA finals were on tape-delay broadcast at 11:30 pm in the East. It took 40 years before the NBA exploded into mainstream popularity.

Yes, sometimes the league gets a little gun-shy and thinks too much about the NASL's flameout. But it's going about things in the right way. Build the stadiums first, get a stable revenue stream, and then you can start trying to line up pricey talent. I recall reading about the groundbreaking for Pizza Hut Park, and Lamar Hunt being quoted as saying that when the AFL began building its own stadiums people stopped asking how long it was going to be around.